The Lost Home World

The Lost Home World
by Cerberus Jones
Recommended Ages: 10+

Amelia's older brother James is struggling to understand why the wormholes connecting to the gate under their family's hotel on the Australian seashore are so far off schedule, when suddenly a completely unexpected gate opens up and through it steps a mesmerizingly beautiful man. Mallan claims to be the long-lost brother of Lady Naomi, an alien woman who (we now learn) arrived on earth through the gate when she was only a baby, and was raised by groundskeeper Tom. Mallan quickly wins everyone over and seems to be about to take Lady Naomi back to their homeworld ... but it's James, again, who smells a rat.

James is all right in the upstairs area, for sure. But when the world is in danger – or, at very least, their otherworldly friend – it's Amelia and her best friend, Charlie, who must leap into action. Mallan isn't who he seems, and who he actually is is so much more awful than anyone could have guessed. Or maybe, they should have – but he outwitted them until it was all but too late.

Or maybe it is too late. The bad guy certainly enjoys having the upper hand, and Amelia can't do much to stop him from carrying her and a terrifyingly dangerous item through the next available wormhole. One possible outcome is that the entire earth could be turned inside out and sucked into the vast Nothing that fills the cosmos. Obviously, since this is book 7 of 8, that doesn't happen. But what does happen is pretty far out.

It's been a couple years since I read the other books in the Gateway series, because I couldn't find a copy of this particular installment for less than a ridiculous amount of money. Then I visited the amazing Thimbleberry Books in downtown Marshfield, Wisconsin, whose owner and his kitty-cat shop assistant helped me track down a copy that I could order for only a mildly foolish sum. And so I finally read it, and completed the series, and the world is beautiful again.

Cerberus Jones is the three-headed writing team of Chris Morphew, Rowan McAuley and David Harding. None of them, nor their group alter-ego, shows up in a search of Fantastic Fiction. Though the edition I read was published out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the book was originally published in Australia. So, that might explain why information is so thin on the ground about these folks. But if you like your world not being overrun by deceiving reptiles, thank them and the Forgotten Bay hotel for their valuable work of guarding that gate which none of us is supposed to know about. Wink, nudge.